Get to know Dr. Lenore Wright, one of Baylor’s newest Master Teachers

Earning recognition as a Master Teacher at Baylor is a rare honor — the highest a BU professor can receive for his/her teaching. In January, President Linda Livingstone announced the lifetime designation for four Baylor professors, increasing the roll of Master Teachers to 33 since the honor was first bestowed more than 40 years ago.

Among the newest honorees is Dr. Lenore Wright (MA ’95), an award-winning philosophy professor in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core (BIC) and director of Baylor’s Academy of Teaching and Learning from 2011-24. Wright came to Baylor in 1994 as a graduate student, joined the Baylor faculty five years later, and has been a BU fixture ever since.

“The high value Baylor places on teaching and learning, combined with the university’s extraordinary number of excellent teachers, makes the appointment as Master Teacher the highest honor of my career,” she says. “I am confident that Baylor’s institutional commitment to teaching and learning will continue to motivate me to become the best teacher I can be and a teacher who helps others fall in love with teaching and learning.”

Wright has twice received a Baylor Outstanding Faculty award — in 2009, in recognition of her distinctive teaching, and again in 2024 for her significant contributions to the academic community. She is also the author of two books — Athena to Barbie: Bodies, Archetypes, and Women’s Search for Self, and The Philosopher’s ‘I’: Autobiography and the Search for the Self — and has published widely in both philosophy and teaching and learning journals.

Wright joins such Baylor legends as Robert Reid, Ann Miller, Ray Wilson, Tom Hanks and Bob Darden among the university’s 33 Master Teachers. Honorees are nominated by their former students and BU faculty/staff, and selected for their profound impact in the classroom and on students’ lives.

Sic ’em, Dr. Wright!